Containing 6 tracks percussion journey into Dahlen’s imagination brings manifold cinematic memories to my mind. Music is very imaginative and spacious. Soundstage is simply epic. This are all big scores like sonic landscapes reminding works of the biggest names working for the movie industry. Like Hans Zimmer or Ryuichi Sakamoto. Or Antonio Sanchez to bring it more to the jazz drumming territory.
But the drumming is very propulsive as well, so it refers to the history of the rock music without a shade of doubts. Music of The Police, Tangerine Dreams, Mike Oldfield, Pink Floyd or Grateful Dead alike comes to my head as a first impression.
Another subject worth mentioning is an extended range of instruments which had been used for making this sounds. Not just a drums and bells and all sort of percussion instruments, but also cutlery, strings and all sort of electronics to mix and loop it with at the end. Even Drone boxes, to jump out of usual approach completely. All that shows an incredible creativity and imagination and the frameworks he created and taking us indeed into multiply mental departures. Sort of things which I first time experienced from another percussionist wizard – Terje Isungset.
An opening Clocks, with gentle techno bit and ticking sounds of clocks and gongs reminds a bit a psychotic trip of Dark Side of the Moon that Floyds took us once to. But the tension brings even more dark feelings and multicultural images which are travelling through your head are revering to early period of Gong music, a bit like on Camembert Electrique with drumming pattern reminding a bit Dire Straits. I can see the crops from movies like Solaris, 5th Element or Delicatessen, humour wise. So, you got a picture now, I believe.
The Glas, coming after is Insugset’s universe. Short , but very rich ,spacious and dynamically extended, with this feeling of coldness coming from the upper transients of the percussion sounds.
Ship, Is almost like a tribute to the Gong’s Gazeuse with very rich tissue reminding me the best from Pierre Moerlen. But with this electronic plankton characteristic for the overall sound of CAN from the period of 70-ties and 80-ies, listen to the Tago Mago album, or to the Rite Time and you would feel it immediately. One can tell the music he grown on listening to.
Following two with the titles illustrating animals, the Bear and the Lizard I like to see as a portrait of the creatures themselves. In the first one monumental stepping power of the rhythm describes the rough power of the animal, with its ruthless sense of self confidence. Dynamic range makes this walk incredibly three-dimensional and almost touchable like a hologram.
On the other pole, we are getting repetitive pattern camouflaging the real nature of the sonic wave which gets twisted and modulated under the surface. Kind of weirdness which makes an easy natural association with a reptilian sort of nature. Some might however see completely different pictures there. Easy to understand if listened with no suggestion coming from the title.
That’s exactly the power of that music. One keeps reading in it like in an open book and never gets enough. Therefore, I am leaving closing Wood composition for your very own recognition.